Part 3, Chapter 13 Summary

Thomas Chatterton is a happy young man, excited about where his life is going and how well his writing has been accepted so far. Chatterton lost his virginity a few nights before, a fact that both excites and surprises him. However, he is afraid the experience has left him with a sexually transmitted disease. Chatterton talks to an older friend about his situation and is told of a kill-or-cure that will help him. Four grains of arsenic and a dessert-spoon of opium will cure his problem.

Chatterton goes out that morning and buys the ingredients for his cure, intent on taking it before he goes to bed that night. Then he spends his day in pursuits of his work, writing an elegy about a benefactor and preparing to deliver it to the magazine that has agreed to publish it.